As demand for digital entertainment increases, multimedia content providers, such as television broadcasters, increasingly face the problem of identifying and addressing faulty systems. Customer equipment, in particular, presents a challenge in that host devices, which receive and demodulate programming signals and provide interface functionality, are located at the customer's premises. The host devices typically interface with access control modules, which limit access to programming content by enabling encryption/decryption of signals, user authentication and the like. The access control modules may be implemented, for example, using a separate cablecard or a built-in module providing essentially the same functionality as a cablecard. Sending technicians to customer locations for diagnosing and repairing problems which may occur in the host devices and/or the access control modules is time consuming, expensive and otherwise inefficient.
Presently, various problems occurring at a host device may be remotely diagnosed, for example, at a cable headend computer, over a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)/Internet Protocol (IP) network. This is accomplished, in part, using an IP address of the host device to identify and contact the host device in order to retrieve associated data. However, such remote contact is not possible for systems that are not separately addressable on the network.
For example, the United States has adopted the OPENCABLE™ standard by Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. The OPENCABLE™ host middleware includes the OPENCABLE™ Application Platform (OCAP) standard, which supports bi-directional communications between the host at the customer premises and the headend computer. Accordingly, diagnostic information relating to a number of predetermined parameters may be provided through the TCP/IP network using the IP address of the host.
However, the OPENCABLE™ standard includes CABLECARD™ specifications for access control modules, which provide content copy protection and customer authentication. The access control modules are not directly IP addressable. Also, although CABLECARD™ supports providing data from an access control module, such as HyperText Markup Language (HTML) pages, the data may be shown only on the host display (e.g., the customer's television set or monitor). Accordingly, to the extent the HTML formatted data provides diagnostic information, a technician must be physically present at the customer site to view the information in order to detect and address any problems with the access control module.